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Kaillie Humphries breaking ice for women in bobsled

Canadian pilot, along with U.S. counterpart Elana Meyers Taylor, is competing against men, charting new ground for females in the process.

Kaillie Humphries with her crew, from left, DJ McClellan, Joey Nemet and Daniel Dale. “It comes down to trust in the pilot that when we get in the sled we know that we’re going to get down,” McClelland said of Humphries. “It’s been fun and some of the smoother runs I’ve had.” (Todd Korol / For the Toronto Star)

This season, bobsled’s international governing body ruled that the marquee four-man event would become
gender neutral
, opening the door — just slightly — to female pilots.

Humphries and American Elana Meyers Taylor, an Olympic bobsled silver medallist, are the only two athletes with the necessary hutzpah and team backing to take advantage of that opening.

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While Humphries and her three male brakemen like to make jokes about her feminine side, she’s no traditional waif-like creature.

But, at four-man training on Thursday, surrounded by men who used to be sprinters, football, rugby and hockey players, she does seem small, and just a little girlie with a long blond braid and bright pink sleeves, poking out from her race suit.

“I try to minimize the making history part,” said 29-year-old Humphries. “Not because I don’t think it’s momentous, I know it is, but racing is racing. Whether I’m making history or not, I want to get down the fastest way possible.”

In the start house, she prepares for four-man just as she does for the two-man event she’s dominated for years.

Sled on the line, her back to the track, she works through the course in her head weaving slightly as she navigates big corners. Then, with two quick taps on the front of the sled, they’re off down the track.

But, in four-man she only pushes for about 15 metres — less than half what she does in the women’s event — before she has to jump in or risk being left behind by her faster crew.

“It’s a different dynamic,” Humphries said, of a bobsled crew with a female pilot (a.k.a. the boss) and three male brakeman, whose only job is to push hard and fast and jump into what amounts to a moving bathtub.

“If I can build it up, so the team feels special and we’re actually kicking ass, the guys can be like ‘Hey, a chick is beating you.’ That’s pretty sweet. It can easily go the other way if I start sucking, crash or bang the crap out of them, then they’re going to be like, ‘See, women drivers, told ya,’ ” she said.

“This is a risk. None of us knows what’s going to happen.”

And, as with all test cases, Humphries and Meyers Taylor aren’t just competing for themselves. Whether they fail or succeed will, in large part, decide the future for other bobsledders and feed the ongoing debate about the ability of female athletes to compete against male counterparts.

To get this far, Humphries and Myers Taylor had to beat all-male teams to finish top three at their team trials last month. That’s the third place finish Humphries tweeted so proudly about.

It’s also the race that won Canada’s head bobsled coach Tom De La Hunty a night of free beer.

Pretty much everyone in the sport acknowledges that Humphries is the best pilot in a women’s two-man sled but many have been surprised at how quickly she has taken to driving a four-man, which handles like a big truck compared to the sports-car feel of a two-man.

She has a disadvantage against all-male teams in the critical 50-metre push start where strength and speed are paramount. But De La Hunty bet, correctly as it turned out, that she could drive her way to a strong finish and earn one of the coveted four-man spots on the national team.

“She is probably the best pilot in the world, man or woman,” De La Hunty said.

Her crew — Dan Dale, DJ McClelland and Joey Nemet — don’t seem to care much about their place in history. They just want to do well in races.

“It comes down to trust in the pilot that when we get in the sled we know that we’re going to get down,” McClelland said. “It’s been fun and some of the smoother runs I’ve had.”

But Humphries and Meyers Taylor say they still have a lot to prove to their sport’s governing body and — if they are ever to win a race — their nation’s top brakemen.

To get to the World Cup circuit in December, they need to show they can safely finish five lower-tier races on three different tracks.

They knocked off the first two last week in Park City, Utah — both finishing well inside the top 10. They expect to get the next two races here in Calgary on Sunday and the fifth in France next week.

But to have a real chance against the top teams in the world, Humphries says she needs to gain the confidence of Canada’s fastest brakeman so they’ll eventually slide with her.

“I can drive, I’m proving that to a lot of the guys now. I didn’t think I would have to prove it as much as I’ve had to,” she said.

Bobsled pilots always talk about the importance of team dynamics and camaraderie in getting four 200-pound men to work in unison and cram themselves into a space designed for speed not comfort.

“Even just being in the start house on four-man day, there are inside jokes, it’s a very male, machoistic, testosterone-driven environment,” Meyers Taylor said.

Her husband, Nic Taylor, a former bobsled brakeman, briefly came out of retirement to be on her team for the U.S. team trials and helped her “work through the man psyche,” she said.

“I’m used to having to rally the troops emotionally and make sure everyone is feeling OK but with men it’s more making sure they have their spikes or their helmet,” she said, laughing.

“So far the reception has been OK,” Meyers Taylor said about how bobsledders are greeting the change.

“We’ll see what happens when we get over to Europe and what those guys think. But at the end of the day it’s not about what the guys think, it’s about trying to progress women’s bobsled forward. I don’t care what happens, if they’re going to hate me or say adverse things about me it doesn’t matter because we need to do this, this is something that is important.

“It’s important to me, it’s important Kaillie and it’s important to women.”

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